Spartanburg transportation officials are taking another shot at fixing a dangerous railroad crossing that they've been worried about for 10 years.

By Felicia Kitzmillerfelicia.kitzmiller@shj.com

Spartanburg transportation officials are taking another shot at fixing a dangerous railroad crossing that they've been worried about for 10 years.A defect in the intersection of Fairforest Road and North Blackstock Road leaves some travelers straddling the railroad tracks, creating a safety hazard, said Jim D'Amato, transportation planning manager, at the Spartanburg Area Transportation Study's policy committee meeting on Monday.Traveling north on North Blackstock Road, the left turn lane to remain on the road at the intersection of Fairforest Road isn't long enough, D'Amato said. The short distance between the light and the railroad tracks means long vehicles, including school buses and tractor trailers, are sometimes forced to straddle the railroad tracks.“The signal is traffic activated, and it will turn green to clear the intersection if there's a train coming. The problem would be if a car stalled, trapping them and the car behind them,” D'Amato said. A car stalling on the tracks is a threat at any railroad intersection, but the risk is heightened when there's a signal involved, said Eric Dillon of the S.C. Department of Transportation.“When the gates go down, that train is there,” he said.As an interim fix, D'Amato said they are looking into getting the activation for the light moved farther back on the tracks, giving cars additional time to clear the intersection ahead of oncoming trains, but to truly fix the problem, the intersection has to be reconstructed.Several years ago, a fly-over on Fairforest Road was proposed, but the project was cancelled when funding couldn't be found to foot the $15 million price tag. Currently, there is $2.2 million in federally earmarked funds available for the project, but D'Amato told the policy committee he was worried about what would happen to that money if the government goes into sequestration over the debt ceiling.“I'm worried if we have $2 million sitting around we're going to lose it,” he said.At Monday's meeting, the SPATS policy committee gave approval to advance the project to the state Transportation Department to be studied.The policy council was shown several preliminary options for fixing the intersection drawn up by DOT. The one favored by state officials involves rerouting the North Blackstock Road traffic to the nearby Church Street in Fairforest and installing a traffic circle at the Church Street and North Blackstock Road intersection to keep speeds down.The reroute would put about 7,000 to 9,000 new vehicles per day on that section of Church Street.County Councilman O'Neal Mintz was concerned about the effect of the increased traffic on Church Street, particularly because Fairforest Baptist Church is located along the route and its building and parking lots are on opposite sides of the street.“There's no doubt that's probably the most dangerous railroad crossing in Spartanburg County, but if you move all that traffic on Church Street, you just increase the chance of killing someone there,” he said.D'Amato said Monday's vote directs SCDOT to begin studying the problem and gathering public input, and its data will be brought back to the SPATS policy committee.Also at the meeting, members:Approved about $2.3 million in Federal Transit Administration funding requests from the city and county of Spartanburg, the Charles Lea Center, the Senior Centers of Spartanburg County, New Day Inc., Mountainview nursing home and Spartanburg County Veteran's Affairs.Approved the use of $272,000 in federal transportation funds for landscaping in the California Avenue bridge project, which is set to start in the spring of 2014.Were informed SCDOT has decided to include intersection improvements as part of the mandate that local transportation organizations use 20 percent of their funds for repaving projects. D'Amato said Spartanburg easily does enough intersection improvements to meet this obligation, so there will be no change in the SPATS work plan.Were given an update on the Highway 9 improvement project. Phase one at the intersection of Route 219 is complete and Phase two is about 12 percent done and scheduled for completion by the end of 2015.

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